1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of information content retrieval and processing. More particularly, the present invention relates to a system and methodology for aggregating and syndicating dynamic content.
2. Description of the Background Art
Computers are very powerful tools for storing and providing access to vast amounts of information. The first computers were largely stand-alone units with no direct connection to other computers or computer networks. Data exchanges between computers were mainly accomplished by exchanging magnetic or optical media such as floppy disks. Over time, more and more computers were connected to each other and exchanged information using Local Area Networks (“LANs”) and/or Wide Area Networks (“WANs”). Initially such connections were primarily amongst computers within the same organization via an internal network. More recently, the explosive growth of the Internet has provided access to tremendous quantities of information from a wide variety of sources.
The Internet comprises a vast number of computers and computer networks that are interconnected through communication links. The World Wide Web (WWW) portion of the Internet allows a server computer system to send graphical Web pages of information to a remote client computer system. The remote client computer system can then display the Web pages in a Web browser application (e.g., Netscape® Navigator, Mozilla Firefox, or Microsoft® Internet Explorer). To view a specific Web page, a client computer system specifies the Uniform Resource Locator (“URL”) for that Web page in a request (e.g., a HyperText Transfer Protocol (“HTTP”) request). The request is forwarded to the Web server that supports that Web page. When that Web server receives the request, it sends the specified Web page to the client computer system. When the client computer system receives that Web page, it typically displays the Web page using a browser application.
Currently, Web pages are typically defined using HyperText Markup Language (“HTML”). HTML provides a standard set of tags that define how a Web page is to be displayed. When a user indicates to the browser to display a Web page, the browser sends a request to the server computer system to transfer to the client computer system an HTML document that defines the Web page. When the requested HTML document is received by the client computer system, the browser displays the Web page as defined by the HTML document. The HTML document contains various tags that control the displaying of text, graphics, controls and other features. The HTML document may also contain URLs of other Web pages available on that server computer system or other server computer systems. Web pages may also be defined using other markup languages, including cHTML, XML, and XHTML.
Every day, more and more information is made available via the Internet. The challenge posed to users is how to efficiently locate, access, and use information and applications that are relevant to them from amongst the huge quantities of materials that are available in a variety of different formats. The World Wide Web is made up of millions of “Web sites” with each site having a number of HTML pages (Web pages). Each HTML page usually has a number of Web objects on each page such as graphics, text, and “HyperText” references (URL's) to other HTML pages. For example, a user may wish to collect information from three different sources. Each of these sources may potentially maintain information in a different format. For instance, one source may be a database, a second may be a spreadsheet, and a third may be a Web page. In addition the information available at many sources is also regularly updated. Thus, there is also a need to identify and retrieve dynamically updated content from these diverse network sources.
Consider a typical example of user that accesses information available via the Internet. The user may access the Internet from a desktop or laptop computer (e.g., in her office) and may also use a wireless telephone or other handheld device (e.g., personal digital assistant or PDA) for Internet access when she is away from the office. The user typically uses a Web browser such as Microsoft Internet Explorer or Mozilla Firefox to “surf” the World Wide Web and locate information of interest. For instance, she may use a Web browser to locate and obtain a quote for a particular stock on a financial services Web site. Once the information is obtained, the Web browser typically provides some capability for the user to mark the source of this information so that she may return to it again at a later time. For example, she may “bookmark” a page of the financial services Web site that provides information about the particular stock. The browser may also have a “history” view that provides information regarding recently viewed items. However, the capabilities of current Web browsers for collecting and presenting information of interest are limited and place much of the burden or collecting and organizing information on the user. For instance, a user may have to go to the main menu of the Web browser and select a particular item under the “bookmarks” to return to particular previously-viewed item. Another complication is that the information may no longer be available when the user attempts to return to the previously-viewed item.
Another existing solution which provides for consolidating information for presentation to users is a Web “portal”. A portal is a Web site that aggregates dynamic content from different content providers. A well-known example of a Web portal is Yahoo.com which assembles content from a variety of sources, organizes it into certain categories (e.g., sports, news, financial, entertainment, shopping, and so forth), and makes the assembled content available to users (e.g., in Web pages). Portals are a useful tool in consolidating certain types of content; however, the content that is available is determined by the organization running the portal (or its content managers) rather than by individual users. Current portal solutions are effective in delivery of “high-volume/public information.” The Internet provides an almost endless stream of this type of information (sometimes also referred to as “high-traffic” content) which can be characterized as “impersonal” and is usually pre-selected by a content manager located somewhere between the source of the content and the user desiring access to the information. However, current portals are much less effective in delivering personalized content to users, particularly if the personalized content is not of general interest to a larger community (e.g., lower volume or lower traffic content).
Web portals typically provide users with certain capabilities to “customize” or “personalize” the information presented in the portal. A user may, for example, select the categories of information that are of interest (e.g., interested in news but not shopping). Some portals also enable users to indicate which categories are to be displayed in which portions of the Web page (e.g., news at the top of the Web page), select particular stocks to be included in financial portions of the Web page, and so forth. However, current solutions only provide limited customization capabilities and generally require users to select from items available in the catalog or repository of the portal operator. This is, in fact, a significant limitation of current portals. Current portals typically rely on a catalog which contains a limited collection (e.g., few hundred items) of content. The limited collection typically focuses on “high-traffic” items of content that are of wide general interest such stock quotes, national and international news, weather, sports information about major college and professional sports, and so forth. However, other types of information that are not of wide, general interest are usually not available through current portals. For example, a user may wish to collect information about local schools and athletic teams (e.g., high school or little league teams) that his children are involved with together with content from a club that he belongs to and information from his local homeowner's association. This type of “low-volume”, highly personalized information is generally not aggregated and made available on any commercial portal.
What is needed is a solution that enables a user to easily and automatically collect information of interest from a variety of content sources, organize the information in a convenient format (e.g., on a single page), and display the collected information on various different types of devices. The solution should be easy to use so that the user can easily identify items of content which are then automatically collected without the user being required to take any further action. Ideally, the solution should automatically refresh the information periodically so that it remains current. The solution should also enable the user to select content available from a wide range of content sources for collection rather than to limit the user to a limited catalog or list of “high-traffic” items that are of general interest to many other users. The present invention provides a solution for these and other needs.